I am an instrument in the shape/ of a woman trying to translate pulsations/ into images for the relief of the body/ and the reconstruction of the mind
The Donnas on KZSU
Glenn Smith
Darren Raffaeli
Let’s Go Mano
Wednesday Night Live
Jon and Marjorie Ford
Adrienne Rich
William Blake
The Doors
“when the doors of perception are cleansed everything will appear as it is, infinite”
Paul Cohen continuum hypothesis
Steve Cohen’s poker reading list
Tory Castellano enrolled at Stanford
Cubberley Sessions
Eugene Robinson
Bart “the Recording Guy” Thurber
Jon Maguire
Jim Harrington
The Runaways
Nissan, Tide, Target
Ragady Anne 7-inch, songs about throwing a teddy bear off the bridge and making your own money
One of six bands from my series that went on to Gold or Platinum status including The Donnas, Cake, AFI, Stroke 9, Third Eye Blind and Blink 182.
Lookout Records home to Green Day
Atlantic Records home to Led Zeppelin
Gilman Street
Molly Neuman
The Donnas deserve a lot of credit for rocking the boat, bucking the trends, making records, making money, making lifestyles for themselves yet all the while keeping as a primary directive the fact that they are a group of friends there for each other more than for anyone else’s needs or expectations — I vividly recall that when the time for their hit came, at their professional debut, about 9:30 on a Friday at a defunct high school auditorium, they were no where to be found, not in the dressing room, not front of house, not in the house. I admit I recall a slight sinking feeling. But then I somehow looked up into the crowsnest of the proscenium theater and there they were, the four young members of Ragady Anne, knee to knee and nose to nose having a pow wow, getting away from it all for the moment. Of course they went on stage and practically started a riot; the audience mainly being 12- to 15-year old girls — their peers, a definite contrast to what soon followed in the way of The Donnas luring testosterone into their realm. There was something purer about their already considerable success then. Listening to the KZSU broadcast again years later, you can hear the complexity of their situation, and not just because they pretended to be two different groups, Ragady Anne versus their rivals The Donnas. They’ve handled the success and the disappointments in a way that has made their town proud, and I would think their parents as well. Maybe Palo Alto could honor them the way it recently made a proclamation for Jerry Garcia.
I will try to add links to relevant Donnas sites (and Ragady Anne) but for now all I have time for is to show Marjorie Ford, who is now practically my next door neighbor, doing her Adrienne Rich interpretation, if not channeling William Blake and Jim Morrison.
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 
This was a re-broadcast from October 4, 1995 — notice that IBOPA featuring Jamie Stewart and Glenn Smith played later in the season, as well as Brian Jonestown Massacre.
http://kzsu.stanford.edu/shows/wnl/history1995.html
Also, I learn that local band Interstellar Grain (featuring Rich Corny and Justin Markovits — they played the Earthwise 15th Anniversary show at BOTH) will play live in three weeks on December 1. They have a cool new cd out. Hey, maybe they can cover “Little Piece of Leather”!!!!
This is a link to an article in The Metro by Todd Inoue which says that the Electrocutes were to play on a gig at Cubberley with Pansy Division, Pee Chees and J Church. In actuality, J Church cancelled but were replaced by a band from Japan named Kemuri who were in town to record with Mike Park, for Roadrunner Records. Lance Hahn of J Church came to the show anyhow — first and only time I met him. Pee Chees were co-led by Chris Applegren and Molly Neumann, eventual co-owners of Lookout Records — who signed and developed the Donnas; Molly later served as the band’s manager during their Atlantic Records years.
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/01.16.97/beat-9703.html
By the way, Todd’s article was a little misleading in that the concert series did not end up registering as a non-profit. The City of Palo Alto did eventually try to negotiate a “co-sponsorship” agreement with us — offering to give us the venue in exchange for the public service of underwriting these shows, but it got shot down by in-fighting between “Arts and Culture” (i.e. have heard of Picasso) and “Recreation” (know that a ball is round, grass is green, but are afraid of black nail polish on men) departments.
The scary band with black nail polish was of course A.F.I. They actually hassled me about the press photo of Davey Havok et al.
Not a great segue but Steve Cohen sent me this link to the Stanford juggling club, Down With Gravity:
http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/02/08/colors-in-the-sky/
This doesn’t really go here either but I noticed on the BayVibes website (after seeing former child prodigy now 26 David Jacobs-Strain at Yoshi’s lounge yesterday) that Megan Slankard has some new studio material. This rather talky video has the same session underneath. Best to Megan (was once ahead of her time, like the Donnas):
bart thurber house of faith (recorded the donnas aka ragady anne in 1994(
http://www.houseoffaithrecording.com/
i.e. bart thurber discovered the donnas